Proof that Panspermia Happened?

From the pages of yahoo news, Tim Sayell sends in an intriguing article.

In a meteorite discovered in the Sudan, scientists have found something that by all rights should not exist. Scientists have discovered amino acids, the very building blocks of life. Finding them on a meteorite seems to indicate that, far from an isolated occurrence, building amino acids and possibly the proteins that are built from these simple structures, are likely much more common and much easier to synthesize in space.

According to the Yahoo article:

• (previously) scientists found amino acids in samples of Comet Wild 2, and in various carbon-rich meteorites. Finding amino acids in these objects supports the theory that the origin of life got a boost from space.

Read the complete fascinating Yahoo article here

Jupiter just took a pounding, Is Earth next?

Since the huge impact on Jupiter is still fresh in our memories, I think it's fair to ask - what are the chances that the same could befall Earth any time in the near future?

Tim Sayell send in a good article from Yahoo News that deals with just such a question.

As the article points out: So far 784 near-Earth objects (NEOs) more than a half-mile wide (1 km) have been found. NASA has ruled out any of these as an impactor.

It's a safe bet that if 'an object of about the same size that just hit Jupiter also hit Earth — it was probably a typical cometary object of a kilometer or so in size (0.6 miles) — it would have been fairly catastrophic,'

Currently just one NEO poses any significant chance of hitting the Earth — 2007 VK184. This object is 425-foot-wide and should it hit Earth, it would strike with an energy of more than 10,000 times that of Hiroshima. 2007 VK184 has a 1-in-2,940 chance of hitting Earth 40 to 50 years from now.

Like the mosquito that you don't hear, it's the NEOs that we don't know about that are most worrying. NASA estimates that there are about 156 large NEOs 1 kilometer in diameter or larger that remain to be found. But the truly disturbing statistic is that objects of about 500 feet are extremely dangerous and only about 15% of these object have been discovered and only 5% of objects 150 feet in size.

Now the nitty gritty:
The dinosaur killers happen about once every 100 million years
Impacts of 1500 foot size hits about once every 500,000 years...so nothing is expected soon...
150 feet, about 700 years, 98 feet about 140 years or so.

So, nothing really worrisome with what we know so far....but a lot more has to be put into discovery and tracking before I feel safe.

Read the complete article here

Teenager hit by 30k mph meteorite!

I mean, what are the chances?! Well according to this article in the UK Telegraph a million to one.

Gerrit Blank was on his way to school when he saw "ball of light" heading straight towards him from the sky. He felt a searing pain in his hand, was thrown several feet and almost deafened by the blast as a pea sized rock blasted out a hole in the pavement. Estimates have the speed of the small meteorite at apx. 30 thousand miles per hour. It made a 1 foot crater and a nasty three-inch long scar on his hand.

According to the article, what makes this strike unusual is:

• The only other known example of a human being surviving a meteor strike happened in Alabama, USA, in November 1954 when a grapefruit-sized fragment crashed through the roof of a house, bounced off furniture and landed on a sleeping woman.

Meteor Strike May Have Sparked Life On Earth

I know, sounds like I am splitting hairs here because the argument has been postulated for some time that meteor and asteroid strikes on early Earth may have brought biological compounds or even life itself to Earth.

The difference here is much like the earlier work of University of Chicago chemist Stanley Miller who half a century ago showed that lightning strikes in a primordial atmosphere could produce amino acids — the protein-forming building blocks of life. However new research has determined that Earth's early atmosphere was drastically different than the one envisioned by Miller and instead a mix of ammonia and water, much like what composed Earth's early seas. Which brings us once again back to meteors.

Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University, who is studying this phenomenon wrote "Our study shows that biomolecules could be produced on early Earth by reactions among meteorites, water and atmosphere." Furukawa's experiments involve balls of iron and carbon shot into a stew of water and ammonia. Furukawa launched his pellets from a propellant gun at 4,500 miles per hour into a stainless steel container of water and ammonia. The impacts generated temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The simulation produced compounds required to form the first cells. These compounds were fatty acids, amines and an amino acid called glycine. Fatty acids are a component of cell walls, and amines are a basic component of amino acid.

Furukawa's team plans to repeat their experiment in other ocean conditions. They are confident, they write, that meteor impacts explain explain the "bulk of organic molecules necessary for life's origins."

The conclusion that comes to mind though is that meteors need not have carried live or even the basic building blocks - but quite possibly just being in the right place at the right time may have been all that was needed to jump start life on Earth.

<- via Wired ->

Meteor Reveals YouTubers' Ignorance of Astronomy

This is just one of many copies of a cool, but not too unusual, meteor fireball filmed in Edmonton. What is annoying is the amount of extreme scientific ignorance demonstrated by YouTube comments.

In most of the comment sections, the non-exclamatory comments ("Cool!" "Wow!", etc.) break down into three categories.

3. Denial "Fake. Those are Space Shuttles returning to Earth. This happens all the time." Countless comments like this one and the guy who claims to see hands and wires in the video. Apparently Shuttles land all the time in Edmonton.

2. Religious and conspiracy theories. "its not a meteor. god just took a huge **** on earth. j/k. i wonder if this has anything to do with the year 2012. if u dont know wats so special about 2012 look it up on google." I'll spare you the religious ones; they're worse.

and the number 1 response - Blame NASA. Many were the mild - "It's the lost NASA Tool bag." others accused NASA of not doing their job. Apparently it's NASA's job to track the countless pebbles in space.

For the record the CBC interviewd University of Calgary planetary scientist Alan Hildebrand who said "You are talking about something, say, the size of a chair or a desk that entered the atmosphere." not the twenty ton to dinosaur killer sized asteroids many seemed to think.

So if you want to feel sad about the state of science education in the world (YouTube is popular everywhere) just search for Meteor over Edmonton at YouTube and read the comments on a random video. In most cases "wow!" will be the most intelligent, and only accurate, comment.

Most Meteorites Come from Asteroid Belt, Not from N.E.O.s

Contrary to what would be expected, MIT researchers have discovered that most meteorites do not originate as Near Earth Objects (N.E.O.s) but "fast track" from the asteroid belt.

Puzzled by a discrepancy between the type of meteorites that typically strike the Earth ("stony objects, rich in the mineral olivine and poor in iron") and the type of asteroids that form the majority of N.E.O.s, researchers discovered that most meteorites had to be from the inner Asteroid Belt.

They found that most of these objects were gradually disturbed by the Yarkovsky effect, which is the slight effect caused by the sun heating part of the asteroid which then radiates the heat as it rotates, causing a slight wobble in the asteroid's orbit. This can sometimes cause an asteroid to be ejected from the Asteroid Belt and into the Earth's path.

This study is good news for protecting the Earth from impact as it adds to our understanding of what type of asteroid is likely to impact and therefore what methods might be most effective in dealing with a threat.

<Full article from PhysOrg.com>

Perseid Meteor Shower, August 12 -13, 2008

The evening of the 12th August and morning of the 13th August is the annual maximum of the Perseid meteor shower. At its peak and in a clear, dark sky up to 80 ‘shooting stars’ or meteors may be visible each hour. Although the Perseids peak on the 12th August, the shower can be seen for some time either side of that date and it is worth looking out for them the night before. To see the meteor shower, look towards the north-eastern sky. It should be possible to see a meteor at least every few minutes.

The Perseid meteors come from the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle, which was last in Earth's vicinity in 1992. The name of the shower comes from the observation of the meteor's origins , which appear to originate from a point in the constellation of Perseus.

<- more from Science Daily ->

Key to Life Before its Origin on Earth discovered

Researchers studying a special group of meteorites have found them to contain amino acids that have identical counterparts in terrestrial biomolecules. These meteorites are fragments of asteroids that are about the same age as the solar system (roughly 4.5 billion years.)

The discovery was made possible by the finding in Antarctica of an exceptionally pristine meteorite. Antarctic ices are good “curators” of meteorites. After a meteorite falls -- and meteorites have been falling throughout the history of Earth -- it is quickly covered by snow and buried in the ice. Because these ices are in constant motion, when they come to a mountain, they will flow over the hill and bring meteorites to the surface.
...
Dr Sandra Pizzarello, a research professor at Arizona State University, who led the research team said: “Thanks to the pristine nature of this meteorite, we were able to demonstrate that other extraterrestrial amino acids carry the left-handed excesses in meteorites and, above all, that these excesses appear to signify that their precursor molecules, the aldehydes, also carried such excesses,.”

“In other words, a molecular trait that defines life seems to have broader distribution as well as a long cosmic lineage.” Pizzarello said.

(image courtesy Anders Meibom)